Frisco Beat: The Pickwick

I hope everyone is surfing frequently over to ReelSF off my Fellow Ops links — the mysterious CitySleuth is knocking out new descriptions of sites from movies, especially noir movies, all the time, featuring great then and now shots.

Of special interest to me was the gumshoe work to dope out the location of the bus terminal from the 1947 Bogart and Bacall film Dark Passage, based on the novel by the great David Goodis. From a casual clew, it looks as if that scene was filmed in the old Pickwick Stage Terminal.

The Pickwick Stage Terminal was where Sam Spade stored the black bird in the novel The Maltese Falcon. But those same scenes from the 1941 John Huston movie were shot on sets in Hollywood, so Bogart as Sam Spade doesn’t set foot in the actual locale — still, it is pretty cool to see him on site as Vincent Parry. Check it out.

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About DonHerron.com

In 1977 Don Herron began leading The Dashiell Hammett Tour, now the longest-running literary tour in the nation. On this site you’ll find information on current walks — dates, where to meet, arranging tours by appointment — plus a hard-boiled blog with news, reviews of books and film, and a dash of noir.